Transcript
Emily Gracey (0:00)
From the pages of fantasy to the reality of our world. The direwolf, the legendary guardian of House Stark, has leapt from the Game of Thrones into an actual existence after 10,000 years of extinction. Colossal Biosciences claims to have successfully created the first de extinct dire wolves using DNA from ancient fossils. But as we race to resurrect species from the woolly mammoth to the dodo bird, we're venturing into uncharted territory. Today, we're going off the radar and diving into the ethics of de extinction. We'll explore the profound questions this technology raises. Just because we can bring back extinct species, should we what are the ecological implications? And who profits from playing God with genetic code? I'm meteorologist Emily Gracey and you're listening to off the Radar, a production of the National Weather Desk. On the show, we dig deep into topics about weather, climate, the ocean, space, and much more. Our goal is to help you better understand the weather and to love it as much as we do.
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AT&T (1:32)
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Emily Gracey (2:03)
In the winter hush during a snowfall, when the air is so crisp and quiet you could hear a twig snap. Prey animals are on high alert if they're aware of their surroundings. They're constantly scanning the environment, looking ahead and behind, side to side, sniffing for any scent of a predator that the winds might blow their way. But a good hunter knows how to hide from its prey until just the right moment. Larger, faster prey animals tend to have an advantage over smaller creatures. Even a gray wolf tends to go after smaller targets. But in the case of the Dire wolf. It's thought that a pack of wolves could easily take down large prey animals like horses, bison and even woolly mammoths. They had razor sharp teeth and a stronger bite than other wolves. And their larger body size meant more muscle mass and greater overall power. The dire wolf once paced the plains, forests and mountains of North America. Like its modern day descendants, these apex predators were ferocious hunters. But the dire wolf was much larger. They grew up to 6ft long, nose to tail and weighed about 150 pounds. That's almost 25% heavier than gray wolves. Researchers believe that while the dire wolf was well adapted to hunting large prey animals, it couldn't compete with the smaller, faster gray wolves who hunted smaller, faster prey. When large mammals like the woolly mammoth went extinct, dire wolves were left unprepared for the new reality that a changing climate and evolving ecosystem presented. It's a species of wolf that's been extinct for 10,000 years. What we know about their hunting habits and lifestyle comes largely from fossil records at the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, for example. The high concentration of dire wolf fossils suggests that the animals hunted in packs like their smaller relatives, the gray wolf. But now theories are finally able to be put to the test. Colossal Laboratories and Biosciences recently announced the completion of their first in a series of so called de extinction projects. It's an endeavor that sounds straight out of the pages of Jurassic Park. But instead of extracting dinosaur DNA from fossilized mosquitoes, Colossal Biosciences extracted DNA from a 13,000 year old dire wolf tooth unearthed in Ohio and a 72,000 year old direwolf skull that was excavated in Idaho. Using these genetic markers, scientists were able to bioengineer DNA that's a 91% match with that of an extinct direwolf. Researchers then implanted the direwolf DNA into dogs egg cells to facilitate a surrogate birth. Appropriately enough, the first two wolves were born and named Romulus and Remus, the names of twin brothers in Roman mythology who were raised by a wolf. The third wolf was named Khaleesi, after the character in Game of Thrones. George R.R. martin's books and TV series feature direwolves and Martin is a cultural advisor and investor to Colossal Biosciences. The biotech company doesn't plan to stop with dire wolves. They're also planning de extinction projects involving woolly mammoths and dodo birds. And de extinction is big business in qtel. A venture capital firm affiliated with the CIA has been a substantial investor in Colossal Biosciences But Jeff Goldblum has a famous line in Jurassic park that may come to mind.